Sir Christopher Pissarides holds the Regius Chair of Economics at the London School of Economics, the Chair of European Studies at the University of Cyprus and he co-chairs the Institute for the Future of Work, based in London. He specialises in the economics of labour markets, economic growth and structural change, especially as they relate to market frictions, where his work has been especially influential.  In the last decade he has worked extensively on the employment implications of automation and artificial intelligence and on the emergence of China as a global economic power. He has written extensively in professional journals, magazines and the press and his book ‘Equilibrium Unemployment Theory’ is an influential reference in the economics of unemployment that has been translated into many languages.

In 2010, Sir Christopher was awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for his work on the labour market, sharing it with Dale Mortensen of Northwestern University and Peter Diamond of MIT, and in 2005 he became the first European economist to win the IZA Prize in Labor Economics, sharing it again with his collaborator Dale Mortensen. He has since been honoured with several other awards, prizes and society fellowships, including lifetime fellowships of the American Economic Association, the British Academy, the European Academy and the Academy of Athens. He served as president of the European Economic Association in 2011. In 2011 he received the Grand Cross of the Republic of Cyprus, the highest honour of the Republic, becoming also an honorary citizen of his birthplace Nicosia. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2013.

More about Christopher Pissarides and the 2010 Prize in Ecomomic Sciences

Photo: Magnus Rew